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Police say beaten teen left for days

ANCHORAGE — A severely injured 18-year-old man left to die in a vacant Anchorage house likely had been beaten two to three days before he was found, according to Anchorage police investigators.

James Clinton remained in a coma for weeks and has little memory of what happened before officers, tipped off by an anonymous note, found him Sept. 16, the Anchorage Daily News reported.

Four men are charged with felony assault and hindering prosecution in the case.

Trevvor Trobough, 20, was arrested Tuesday and Tye Manning, 21, was arrested Monday. Iosia Fiso, 19, and Michael Liufau, 22, were in custody on another case and were charged last week.

All four are represented by the public defender’s office. A message left Wednesday seeking comment was not returned.

Police found Clinton at the abandoned downtown home after someone slipped an anonymous note under the squad room door of the University of Alaska Anchorage police. The note said Clinton had been beaten and left to die at the home scheduled for demolition.

The note said three men were responsible and that they had been arrested the night before on robbery charges.

Police found both Trobough and Clinton at the house.

Police searched the suspects’ phones and found messages between two of them regarding plans to check on “Chucky,” a nickname for Clinton.

A friend of the group told detectives that Trobough lived at the house and invited others over the night of the assault. A woman told police that Clinton made advances toward Liufau’s girlfriend and Trobough punched Clinton.

“She said Trobough hit Clinton first and knocked him out. She said Trobough stomped on Clinton’s head several times,” wrote Detective Jackie Conn in a court document.

Liufau may have also punched Clinton, the witness told police.

Trobough a month later bragged about beating Clinton, the witness said.

“She said he talked about beating him with something like a bar and then he threw him down the stairs,” Conn wrote in the charges.

Clinton was conscious but could not communicate by Oct. 7, according to Conn. He could talk by last week but did not speak of the assault.

“He did not know what happened to him and he had memory issues, long and short term,” Conn wrote.

Covenant House, a shelter for homeless teens, owned the house where Clinton was found and used it as an office for a construction crew building a new shelter. The home was boarded up afterward. It was demolished a few days after Clinton was found.